Gardening
Allotments
Beautiful berries and savoury salads
Renowned gardening expert, Tom Petherick, offers practical tips on helping you to grow the most delicious fruit and vegetables
Succulent strawberries
By late May, that defining moment is creeping ever closer when the first of the summer's strawberries are ready for picking. Of all the fruits, strawberries are the easiest to grow.
They will fruit however much you neglect them and given a decent spacing (30 to 40 cm), a position in full sun (vital), and the removal of runners after fruiting and continuously thereafter, the rewards will be manifold.
They grow happily in most soils, appreciate some compost or well rotted manure in early spring, and a mulch of straw on top of that so the fruit can sit clear of soil splash and slugs.
From mid summer, cut off all the runners regularly and in the late autumn give the plants a real good haircut down to, but not including, the crown. This will take care of a lot of slugs, red spider mite and aphids and well as fungal diseases.
They do very well in containers of all kinds - towers, barrels and planters or simply window boxes. To see all these, as well as both the newest and most flavoursome varieties on offer, visit Ken Muir's incomparable stand at the Chelsea Flower Show.
Varieties
- Honeoye: Firm, bright red and good quality.
- Elsanta: Heavy crops of large firm berries.
- Cambridge Favourite: Grows well under almost any conditions and an old commercial favourite.
Beautiful berries
Raspberries are many people's choice to accompany strawberries but neglected are the hybrid berries, such as loganberries, tayberries and indeed the cultivated blackberry itself.
These are well flavoured and simple to grow. They do not climb naturally but send out around a half dozen long shoots each year which need to be trained against walls, fences or over ugly garages.
They require support, so some means of tying the new growth in is essential to prevent it flapping in the wind or trailing along the ground. Use string rather than flexi ties for the tying in because this can be burned at the end of the season in case it harbours pests and diseases.
A system of two or three horizontal wires spaced anywhere between 30 and 60 cm apart is best, either strained against a wall or tied to upright posts at each end.
After fruiting, they are cut down to the ground. By that time, the following season's fruiting shoots will already be well grown and ready for tying in during the autumn. Keep the base of the plants under a thick mulch of compost or well rotted manure.
Place your orders with Ken Muir in late May; they will be delivered in November in time for planting. Plant with a good dollop of well rotted manure or compost and watch them grow.
A mulch around the base of the plant to deter weeds will be helpful otherwise they are problem free and very abundant.
Varieties
- Thornless Loganberry: Still the best and ripening in July.
- Tayberry: Very aromatic and heavy cropping from July until September.
- Thornless Blackberry 'Veronique':Very large fruit which freeze well.
Savoury salads
We should all be growing organically but those looking for an easy life can pass the organic test with flying colours simply by planting salad and herb mixes from Jekka's Herb Farm without chemicals in a pot of peat free compost.
Salads grow well in the garden, in most soils, in partial shade if possible, but Jekka McVicar recommends pot culture for her mixed collections which she launched at Chelsea 2005.
Broadcast the seed roughly 1 cm apart on the surface of a 30 cm pot filled with an organic potting compost. Cover lightly and water. Semi-shade is preferable because overly hot conditions will lead to poor germination and bolting.
As those listed below are cut and come again mixes (cut or pluck the leaves just above the crown or growing point), they will grow for two months, maybe more.
To prepare a seed bed in the garden ,add a bucket full of homemade compost per square metre and lightly fork it in rather than digging and turning. Then rake the ground back and forth until a fine tilth is achieved. Remove any big stones.
To make a seed drill, put down a string line and work the tip of your trowel back and forth over a half metre at a time until the required depth of 2cm is reached. After sowing replace the soil, firm and water.
Varieties
- Provencal salad Herb Mix: sorrel, corn salad, chervil and lettuce.
- Tuscan Salad Herb Mix: chicories, rocket, lettuce and kale.
- Jekka's Choice: land cress, red chard, spinach and red Russian kale.
- Eastern Salad Mix: Mizuna, mustard, pak choi.
Gorgeous greens
Odd as it sounds, late May is when you should be sowing winter greens.
We all have our favourites but some of the crops are in for the long haul and hold the ground for almost a full year, so, somewhere in between planting new spring purchases and taking stock of our gardens, we have to sow purple sprouting broccoli.
An annual vegetable that takes a year to grow takes some looking after, but there is a simple route to success.
Raise the plants in pots rather than seedbeds, cover them against birds as young plants, patch the soil surface around the stem against cabbage root fly and be very vigilant with the caterpillars of the cabbage white butterfly and the cabbage moth. Pick them off daily through August or use a thorough organic control, such as Bactospeine.
Keep a keen eye out for pigeons which are very partial to brassicas and either put some flags up, make a scarecrow or pay a bored child to make regular visits into the garden to scare them away. The pigeons will soon look elsewhere. This should get you through to the promised land filled with delicate purple shoots to savour.
As a treat, grow the sprouting kale 'Pentland Brig' for its side shoots. These are as good as if not better than the purple or white sprouting broccolis.
Suppliers
Ken Muir Ltd, Honeypot Farm, Rectory Road, Weeley Heath, Clacton-on-Sea, Essex CO16 9BJ 0870 747 9111 or www.kenmuir.co.uk
Jekka's Herb Farm, Rose Cottage, Shellards Lane, Alveston, Bristol BS35 3SY 01454 418878/ www. jekkasherbfarm.com
Organic Gardening Catalogue 0845 130 1304 or www.organiccatalogue.com
